Today (magazine)

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Today (subtitled a German magazine , edited by the American military government ) was published in Munich from 1945 to 1951 . It was the first German-language illustrated magazine after the end of the Second World War . The American abbreviation was AMG Magazine (American Military Government).

history

The magazine went back to an idea of ​​the US radio station in Europe ABSIE. The first edition of Today was published on behalf of the American Information Service in July 1945 under the title “Today. A new illustrated magazine for Germany "in quarto format by the publishing house" Publishing Operation Branch "in Munich. The editorial was in the makeshift habitable made after the bombing buildings in Schellingstrasse 39 where previously the propaganda newspaper of the Nazis "Volkischer Beobachter" was. Initially the editors-in-chief were Heinz Norden and Warren Trabant. From 1949 the Magnum photographer Ernst Haas was the picture editor. It was published every two weeks. There was no advertising in the paper. In the first few years, the circulation was over 1 million copies. At the same time, the editorial team extracted information sheets on key topics, such as the translation of the US constitution into German.

The contract of the first editor-in-chief, Heinz Norden, was no longer renewed by the military government in 1947, presumably because of an intrigue. A US Congressman for the Republican Party insinuated that he was unsuitable for the democratic development work in Germany because he had shown himself to be a communist in New York. For this reason, he must by no means translate the US Constitution for today . Norden responded in the New York Times on January 17, 1948 that he had had to do the translation with fellow editors because the available translations were inaccurate. The Military Governor of the American Zone, Lucius D. Clay , defended Norden in this article, but ordered that Norden retire by October 1947.

After 152 issues, the last issue appeared at Christmas 1951. The editors said goodbye: "We hope that our magazine has given a lot of people in Germany and Austria joy in the 6 1/2 years of its existence."

content

Initially, the burning issues of the immediate post-war period were the focus of the topics: the Nuremberg Trials , the crimes of the Nazis, the misery of refugees, the misery of the post-war period, the Marshall Plan , denazification . The readership was also supplied with literature by writers such as Thomas Theodor Heine , Karel Čapek , Vicki Baum , Ernest Hemingway . In issue 17 of August 1, 1946, the editorial team printed Heine's “Letter from the Beyond” and commented on it as follows: “Th. Th. Heine was so thoroughly vanished from the memory of the German public that it was hardly possible to get a picture of him. Even in Munich, where he founded the » Simplicissimus « 50 years ago and thus gave direction to a generation of illustrators, after a long search we only found one recording from 1931, where the then 60-year-old is known as one of the strongest political-satirical illustrators in Germany celebrated. "

Later topics that dealt with the ideal world of the American way of life came more and more to the fore . The Mickey Mouse comics first appeared in Germany in 1949 , and Erich Kästner translated the famous American Christmas poem “A Visit From Saint Nicholas”. American fashion, cinema and jazz were other topics. Given the division of Germany and the beginning of the Cold War , the magazine railed today against the Eastern bloc , especially the "East Zone", ie the Soviet-occupied zone of Germany. With Borgward , Vespa , and Overstolz cigarettes, the magazine accompanied the Federal Republic's economic miracle that began around 1950. It also did not dispense with gossip from high society and the noble houses of Europe. After all, the magazine was no longer able to cope with the great competition from new German magazines such as Stern and Quick . 1951 was discontinued today .

Typical content from 1947

The issue of Today from 15 February 1947 was marked by the harsh winter, the second winter since the war. The cover picture shows an elderly woman stuffing a sack in a room with bunk beds. It says: "The old woman came to Berlin with the wide, gray misery stream of Silesian refugees - alone, separated from her children, without knowing anyone in the big, strange city."

On the first page, the editors (the American military government) point out deficits and prejudices. Among other things, they criticize the fact that many Germans loudly believe they are innocent of the rise of National Socialism, “always claim that it was the others” and point to their “clear anti-fascist sentiments.” The editors also noticed that Germans, especially in times of misery after the uphold their culture in the lost war and call jazz “Negro music”. Germans tried to play the Allies off against each other and deliberately give the occupiers false information, for example to send a soldier to Munich who asks about the “Red Cross” because he needs help to Rotkreuzplatz. It is also often said that "Germany would never have lost the war if the Allies had not had such great material advantages."

Below is a letter to the editor from Adolf Lorenz Müller from Bad Aibling . Müller does not deny the existence of concentration camps , but considers the misery of the expellees from East Prussia, Silesia and the Sudetenland to be at least as great. Editor-in-chief Heinz Norden strongly rejects this: “The letter writer thinks that the concentration camp atrocities should fade before the current misery of refugees. Even the 7 1/2 million who lost their lives in the extermination camps are no longer able to deny him that. "

On p. 4 the booklet portrays US General Lucius D. Clay. He has just become the military governor of the American zone. Page 5 reports under the heading "Gravedigger of the Republic" on the criminal trial against the Hitler supporter Franz von Papen . Papen had been acquitted in the Nuremberg trials for lack of evidence, but was sentenced to eight years in a labor camp before the Nuremberg Spruchkammer a year later.

A series of images on double pages 6 and 7 deals with the cold of winter and shows the inner workings of a Berlin apartment building in Sorduer Strasse 4, where a pensioner was frozen to death in the cellar. With photos reminiscent of a theater production, p. 8 reports on the performance of former guards of the Dachau concentration camp in front of their victims, i.e. former camp inmates. At the center of the article is the concentration camp guard Emil Euler, known as “the Umleger”, notorious for using sharp dogs and great physical violence against the prisoners. The American court sentenced Euler, also shown here, to 10 years in prison; a little later he stood before a Polish court, was sentenced to death and hanged to death in 1950.

On p. 9 begins a multi-page report with many pictures about the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine : "[The] modern Zionism [...] aims to transform Palestine into an independent Jewish state, with full recognition of the rights of the Arab population."

On p. 12 Heute portrays the American President Abraham Lincoln and prints some key quotes from his legendary Gettysburg address . Two pages follow with masks from all over the world. On p. 16 begins a two-page report about the Nazi resistance group around the student Sophie Scholl , the White Rose . On the last pages the page becomes lighter: we see photo series from Viennese musical life, especially the Vienna Boys' Choir , a portrait of the fashion designer Heinz Schulze-Varell. Schulze was politically unproblematic for the Americans because he had refused to declare his loyalty to the “Führer” and as a result was drafted into military service.

The magazine has a story by Louis Bromfield on the last pages . In addition, there are photo series about the world premiere of Carl Zuckmayer's drama Des Teufels General in the Schauspielhaus Zurich, as well as photographs of personals posted on a Berlin house wall: “... for the purpose of later marriage”. Women in particular gather in front of the advertisements; the advertisements themselves were mostly presented by older men. The booklet closes with a full-page photo of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC, book tips (Thomas Mann, Heinrich Mann, Franz Werfel and Lion Feuchtwanger) and a picture quiz, including: “The letters WB on an orange-red background on this license plate mean: a ) Bavaria, b) US zone, c) US sector Berlin, c) Württemberg-Baden ”.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The Times, October 23, 1970, p. 14
  2. ↑ Today , Issue 152, December 1951
  3. ↑ The truth is often improbable: Thomas Theodor Heine's letters to Franz Schoenberner from exile , Göttingen: Wallstein-Verlag 2004, p. 417.
  4. ^ CC Moore: A Visit From Saint Nicholas
  5. ↑ see also Schulze in the German biography